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Man arrested for tweet about “confronting” a Muslim woman

The British PR exec demanded that the woman "explain Brussels."

A man in Croydon, England, was arrested for "incitement to racial hatred"—a crime under UK law—after tweeting about accosting a Muslim woman in the street. He demanded an explanation from her for the Brussels attacks, and her response didn't satisfy him. So he took to Twitter to rant about it.

He is understood to be Matthew Doyle, a partner at a south London-based talent and PR agency, who tweeted earlier in the day: “I confronted a Muslim women [sic] yesterday in croydon. I asked her to explain Brussels. She said “Nothing to do with me” a mealy mouthed reply.”

Doyle is not the first Brit to be arrested for this kind of crime on social media. After people reacted negatively to his first tweet, Doyle continued his tirade by tweeting, "Who cares if I insulted some towelhead ?? Really." Before he was arrested, he tweeted, "Thanks all you tweeters for proving I can still do PR."

Annalee Newitz
Annalee Newitz is the Tech Culture Editor at Ars Technica. She is also the author of Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction, and her first novel will be published in 2017. Emailannalee.newitz@arstechnica.com//Twitter@annaleen